Discovering Your Personal Mission Statement

Transcription

1 Discovering Your Personal Mission Statement My Life Timeline On the Life Timeline below, note several major events that meant a lot to you in your life. My Life Timeline Birth Death

2 When you finish, take a few moments to reflect on your life. Think back to those times in your life when you have felt most alive or energized by something you were doing. What were you doing? Perhaps you were writing a song, drawing a picture, working on a class project, helping someone out with a problem, comforting someone, learning something new, initiating something, challenging tradition, winning a race, tending a garden or designing a home. What Sparks Your Passion? For Part 2 of this exercise, you may write your answers below, on another sheet of paper, or start a journal file on your computer. Take a few moments to reflect on each stage of your life that you ve lived so far. What were some of the major interests, peak experiences, projects and activities that sparked passion in your soul? Take your time and have fun with this. If you have trouble recalling, ask a family member or colleague to recall when they have noticed you being particularly passionate about something. Birth 10 years old Pre-teen and Teen Years (10-18) Young Adult (19-25)

3 Adult (26 39 years) Mid-life (40 60) Wise Elder Years (60 and beyond)

4 Think About It Review your answers listing experiences that sparked your passion and ask yourself the following questions. Write your answers below or in your Journal. What do these activities and experiences have in common for you? Were you expressing yourself? Creating? Fixing? What were you feeling? Were you under pressure? Relaxed? Were you working independently or with others? Were you leading? Cooperating? Challenging? What was your purpose at the time? Were you goal-driven? Competing to be the best? Serving the needs of others?

5 Your Personal Mission Statement Your personal mission is your higher calling. It is the motivating force that underlies everything you do. Your mission statement is a brief statement of your personal purpose; a description of what inspires you and motivates you at the deepest levels. Based on your answers to the above exercises, write a first draft of your Mission Statement. Don t try to be perfect; you will get to fine-tune it in the next exercise. Just write what comes to mind! My mission in life is to:

6 The Three What s - Refining Your Personal Mission Statement One way to dig deeper and get to the true essence of your personal mission is to ask yourself What questions that help you get to the core of your mission. For example, you could ask yourself What is motivating me when I do? What is important about that? What is appealing about? Ask yourself at least three what questions after you ve come up with your first draft of your mission statement. For example, let s look at Susan s mission statement. During this exercise, she noticed that she felt most energized and passionate whenever she was decorating spaces. At school, at work, at home and even at friends homes she was always decorating and rearranging spaces. She noticed this pattern started in grade school and never stopped! She particularly loved decorating homes. She logically concluded that her passion and mission was to decorate homes for people. But was that her real deep mission? Is there a greater purpose we can uncover? We guided Susan through The Three What s to get to that deeper, more purposeful mission statement. Here s how it went. Susan My mission is to decorate homes for people. I love the process of creating beauty and harmony out of dull, lifeless spaces. When spaces are beautiful and harmonious people feel happier and more relaxed and hopefully it helps to make their families happier, too I feel like I m making a difference in people lives and helping to create positive energy in the world. My mission is to create beauty, harmony and positive energy that make a difference in people s lives. Coach What is motivating you when you decorate homes? What is important about creating beauty and harmony? What is appealing about helping people feel happier? So what is your deeper purpose and mission in life? Excellent!

7 The end result of this exercise is usually a more compelling and accurate personal mission. It results in a mission statement that should stand the test of time and be fairly consistent throughout your life. It s important to get your mission statement defined because it will also serve as a guide to help you make sure you are on track and focusing on what s really important to you in life. If you start to feel out of balance, you will be able to stop and ask yourself, is what I m doing purposeful for me? Does this really fit with my mission? By digging deeper, you will reveal a personal mission that will be broad enough and flexible enough to give you room to expand and grow in the ways that you fulfill your mission. Your mission will be purposeful enough and big enough to inspire you and the people around you, even when the going gets tough. In Susan s case, her mission became much larger than helping people with decorating their homes. She could start there, and later expand her work to include office spaces, schools, community centers, and any activities that create beauty for Susan and the people she helps. Her broader mission statement allows for bigger and more varied things to happen in Susan s life because creating beauty and positive energy doesn t always take the form of interior decorating, it could include landscaping, fashion, feng shui or anything that enhances beauty in people s lives. Exercise: The Three What s Review your mission statement again and ask yourself three times What do I get out of this? You My mission is to Coach What is motivating you when you?

8 What is appealing about? What is important about? So what is your deeper purpose or mission in life? My personal mission is to

9 Digging Deeper Still Crafting your personal mission statement is a process of discovery. It reveals itself to you in layers as you reflect on your life. Let s do one more self-assessment to see what layers reveal themselves. This self-assessment exercise will help you find even deeper insights into what motivates you personally and professionally. Answer the questions below. Things I like about my life Things I would change Current favorite activities Past favorite activities

10 People have always come to me for or complimented me for The roles I play most often in relationships or in groups are My greatest accomplishments and/or growth experiences so far Future accomplishments and growth experiences I desire

11 My greatest life lessons that I would share with others are (physical, mental, spiritual, social) If I had 6 months left to live, I would do these things (physical, mental, spiritual, social) What would the important people in my life say about me now What would I like the important people in my life to say about me after I die

12 Review Here are some final questions to help you determine if you have gone deep enough and come up with a mission statement that will stand the test of time. If you feel comfortable, consider sharing your mission statement with a few trusted friends, family and colleagues and get their feedback. Review your timeline, self-assessment and mission statement one more time. Ask yourself, does your mission statement: Line up with and encompass the things you said were important to you in the self-assessment? Hold up through the years when you review your timeline? Give you room to grow and change throughout your life? Inspire you to wake up each day and do your work? Sound right to your friends, family and colleagues? Why or why not? Review your mission statement using the characteristics we established earlier. Is your statement: Clear enough to be easily understood and communicated? Brief enough to be easily remembered? Inspiring enough to encourage others to want to support you? Broad enough to encompass your innate talents and abilities? Authentic enough that anyone who knows you well would agree Timeless enough to be accurate throughout your lifetime (there is no deadline on it)? Does it contain an element of being of service to others in some way? If not, review it again and tweak it as needed until it feels right and timeless for you!